


# 17 A Dark Heart, Beating

by midnightflame



Category: Naruto
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), M/M, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 15:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1392343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the way Sasuke looked at him. A darkness that slithered in and out of his gaze as Sasuke stood in the back of the room. Apart…always apart from the others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	# 17 A Dark Heart, Beating

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to get back into this fic thing. That's the only excuse I have for this.

It was the way Sasuke looked at him. A darkness that slithered in and out of his gaze as Sasuke stood in the back of the room. Apart…always apart from the others. Though he was head of the ANBU division now, Naruto knew that a rift remained between Sasuke and the others who supported himself. They accepted Sasuke, enough to know he wouldn’t turn on them but not quite letting themselves believe it completely.

But Naruto trusted him. Trusted him because he believed he knew Sasuke better than anyone else there. Even Sakura, though she had gotten a better handle on who precisely Sasuke was over the last few years. The things that sat between him and Sasuke though…that had been in the making since they were genin. He had seen Sasuke then. He saw him still now.

Which was why he noticed that change. When all the others stood in his office, splitting politics one way or another, Sasuke stood alone, silent. His gaze intent on the man he now called Hokage, the very man he had thought to supplant back when they were sixteen. The very one he supported today, shadow to all of Naruto’s glaring bright.

It had happened slowly over the last few months. Every so often, Naruto would catch a flicker of something in Sasuke’s eyes, like a flash of scale beneath the water’s surface. He couldn’t tell how big it was, how dangerous or if nothing more than some shrinking feeder emotion, but it was there, flashing every so often. Always when it seemed the world had forgotten about Sasuke, leaving him to the shadows, the thoughts that consumed him.

Naruto had half a mind to ask him about those things, but something had always stopped him. Maybe there existed some scrap of fear from all those years ago, that if he prodded too much everything would implode. And all that would be left around them was the ruins of who they were, who Naruto believed them to be.

Silence was an odd instigator of growth, however. He had watched as that slip of something in Sasuke’s eyes grew. It never lingered long, but at every meeting, Naruto saw it. That dark gaze would pin him to the spot - sometimes his chair, other times the window - and as the months passed, he found it robbing him of everything. Thoughts, words, sanity. For a few fleeting seconds, it was as if he had been stripped down to nothing more than a man.

Not Hokage. Not even a ninja. Just Naruto.

Every week the look in Sasuke’s eyes intensified. This writhing, binding darkness. So very alive. And then…then there was today. Forty-five minutes into the meeting and as Naruto caught Sasuke’s gaze, it was as though fingers had coiled around his core and jerked upwards _hard_. He brought a hand to his stomach.

_Naruto_.

“…Naruto!”

His head snapped up at the sound of his name, and all at once, his office came flooding back in around him. Shikamaru was staring at him, exasperated.

“…Sorry…what?” Naruto glanced around the room. Something had happened. The way everyone was looking at him, even Sakura…but Sasuke. Not a single change could be noted in him.

“You’ve been standing there like that, out of it for the last minute. What the hell has gotten into you?” For all the irritation in Kiba’s voice, Naruto could easily pick out the concern. “You didn’t go eating some weird ramen again, did you??”

Naruto gave a short laugh at that, though his hand remained flat against his stomach. If it could have been that simple… Finally, his hand dropped and with it, Naruto flashed a smile at his friends. “Maybe. I kind of forgot to check the date on the package, I guess…"

The room held quiet at that, the silence of the disbelieving.

A moment later, Sakura finally spoke up. “I think we could all use a break. We’ll come back in an hour…it shouldn’t take us much longer after that.”

There were a few grumbles, but already the others were turning to make their way out the door.  Naruto mouthed a silent _thank you_ at Sakura as she turned to look back at him. She only shook her head at him in response. An explanation would need to come, but later at least. How he was going to explain that though…

Sasuke was still standing there, steeped in shadow. His gaze lacked its prior intensity, yet Naruto could still sense it, scorching just beneath the surface. Idly, he wondered if Sasuke was like that, set to burn anything that got too close.

He had always been the last to leave.

Still, Sasuke looked no closer to departing than Naruto himself felt like doing. That wasn’t what he had been hoping for, but Naruto didn’t dislike it. Sasuke had always felt familiar to him, prior hatred and all. He didn’t seethe like that now, though. He had become more settled over the years, almost frighteningly efficient as a ninja. He was perfection in all the ways Naruto could never be, had never hoped to be.

Perhaps that was why that look tore into him the way it did.

It was anything but perfect. Something terrifyingly human about it, the way it smouldered, flashing in and out of view and never giving itself a name. But irrevocably there.

Naruto took a step towards Sasuke, just toeing the edge of darkness around him.

“Don’t you want to go outside? The breather might be nice.”

The corner of Sasuke’s mouth shifted, the hint of a smirk. Naruto could already read what would come next.

“Shouldn’t you be asking that of yourself?”

_I’m not the one who needs it._

At those words, coming as he knew they would be, Naruto could feel the familiar twinge of irritation.  Sasuke was always so damn smooth about it, collected like nothing could shatter his composure. Not anymore.

And there it was again. That flicker of something more in Sasuke’s eyes. It was enough to make Naruto question his proximity.

“This is my office…”

Sasuke’s eyebrow lifted at that. _So what?_

“… .Hmph. Well, if you’re not going to leave then you have to tell me something.”

“And what would that be?” Sasuke prodded, that smirk never quite leaving his lips.

“Something’s changed.”

“That’s not a question.”

Naruto let loose a low growl. Sasuke tipped his head back against the wall, smirk well established now. Those eyes…Naruto watched as that flicker returned to them, a flash of fire, reminding you just how dark those shadows were. How brilliant one could burn.

It turned his words to ash.

Just as he turned to leave (sometimes it was utterly pointless trying to confront Sasuke), Naruto found his wrist caught, his back suddenly to the wall, and Sasuke so very, very close. Eyes locked. A split-second thought - _was it better to burn or drown_? That’s what those eyes were asking him now, the choice they were offering him as Sasuke leaned in.

“…are you scared?”

Was he…Naruto could feel the heat of Sasuke’s grasp, the warm coil of his fingers. And he could imagine the brush of his lips, close as they were to his own. Was he scared?

“Yeah…” Naruto murmured. Because this was a Sasuke he did not know. Despite that though, there remained that inherent understanding between them. “But you know that’s never stopped me.” 

Sasuke breathed out, the sound hinging on a laugh. “An idiot’s last words…”


End file.
